1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to evaporative coolers and more particularly to pan shaped structures and interconnecting structural elements therefor.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the construction of evaporative cooler housings it is a common practice to form two separate pan shaped structures one for the top and one for the sump or bottom. The top and sump pans are then interconnected with corner posts, and in some instances, two of the corner posts are replaced with a sheet metal panel structure which extends between the pans and forms one side wall of the finished cooler housing. In either event, the interconnecting structural members are attached such as with screws, welding and the like, to the top and sump pans, and in the case of the corner post type of interconnecting structure, this attachment is limited to the corners of the top and sump pans.
Therefore, the manner in which the corners of the pans are formed is particularly improtant in that those corners must be structurally strong, should be easy to assemble into a finished evaporative cooler housing an must be leakproof. Furthermore, the corners of such pans should ideally not require any notching, punching, trimming or other special operations either during or after fabrication and such corners should be aesthetically appealing.
One particular prior art pan structure employed a drawn rounded corner configuration which, of course, was inherently leakproof but required a considerable amount of trimming after completion of the drawing operation. The equipment needed to fabricate such a rounded corner is very large and expensive and such a corner makes assembly of the housing difficult due to the problem of precisely locating and attaching a corner post or other pan interconnecting structure thereto.
Due to the difficulties associated with the above described rounded corner configuration, the most commonly employed corner structure is of square configuration.
In general, the prior art square corner configurations of the top and sump pans of evaporative cooler housings, and the techniques employed in fabricating such corners, have not satisfied the above described necessary and ideal characteristics due to a variety of factors. For example, some of the prior art square corner fabricating techniques require time consuming and costly special operations both during and after fabrication and result in corner configurations which are oftentimes unsightly, structurally weak, and must be rendered leakproof by the application of tar or other leakproofing substance. Further, some of these prior art square corner configurations are similar to the above described rounded corner in that special complex fixtures and excessive time is required to assemble the pan structures into a finished cooler housing.
Therefore, a need exists for a pan shaped structure having new and improved corner configurations and interconnecting structural elements for use in the construction of evaporative cooler housings and which solves some of the problems of the prior art.